Whatever Else
by Pickles
Summary: PG for mild shonen ai and language. I kinda got inside Aya-kun's head and wrote from there. Just some random thoughts of his. R&R is greatly appreciated.


Konnichi wa, minna-san... (ducks rotten tomatoes) Hey! You quit that! This isn't a DragonBallZ/GT  
fic! (is greeted by silence) Ha! So there! (JohnnyJosh and DBZ/GT fans stand up and quietly  
leave, leaving Moonflower sitting all by her lonesome) Hey, isn't Din'Amarth supposed to be here  
too? Oh well. He'll get around to it some time. Lookie here, peeps. This is a soliloquy I wrote  
from Aya's viewpoint. I've been told I'm very good at soliloquy, so please be nice. If Yohji/Aya  
offends you, LEAVE! A good bit of this is about them. Okay, this isn't intended to offend, so  
there.  
  
Disclaimers! Uhhh... Weiss belongs to Project Weiss, and Project Weiss belongs to Koyasu  
Takehito, I think... so please don't sue me, Takehito-san. The soliloquy is MINE! You steal it,  
I'll hunt you down and rip your throat out with my teeth. And I am not kidding. I can be pretty  
damned rabid when I want to be.  
  
Whatever Else  
  
By Mako-chan the 384th  
  
Ice cold.  
  
Unfeeling.  
  
Stone heart.  
  
Yes, I know what they think of me. They don't think I'm a bastard, per se. Most days anyway. The  
younger two never do, and the eldest of us... well, he only thinks that when he's got a hangover.  
Which is to say every other morning.  
  
Ice cold. Omi, our prodigy, thinks that of me. Do I look like ice to you? I am human. It is blood  
that runs through my veins, not Arctic waters. My skin is warm. I feel it when you touch me -  
perhaps too much. But, as leader, it is necessary for me to slam a wall of silence down between  
us. I will not - I cannot - drop it. IF I did, when I spoke my orders, no one would listen. They  
would, instead, question me. Because they would know the real me, and that leads to one  
questioning my sanity.  
  
Unfeeling. Ken, our dark sunshine, thinks that of me. This hurts. That, in itself, proves him  
wrong, I suppose. But I feel the need to explain farther. I feel. Of course I feel. If I had no  
emotions, I would be no better than my counterpart, Crawford. But I feel too much. Every day,  
everything that reminds me of Aya-chan hurts me to look at. Every day, there is the awful, false  
hope that she will awaken, the hope against hope. There is the crushing pain when, as the day  
draws to a close, she is still asleep. There is the helpless empty rage I feel at what was done  
to my family. There is the horror I feel in my very soul for having such bloodstained hands.  
There is the dread and knowing certainty that I will kill again tonight in my dreams. I feel  
terror that I should have to draw my katana again and kill yet another helpless soul who didn't  
know what was - is - coming. Oh yes, I feel. I hid it. I cannot let them know I feel such fear  
and pain. I would lose their respect.  
  
Where are my other feelings, you ask? Surely not all my emotions can be so dark. You want happy?  
You've come to the wrong assassin. Go see Omi. Or Ken. Or maybe even Yohji. But not me. The word  
happy ceased to exist for me the day Aya-chan ceased to think, to feel, to *be*. Oh, there is a  
dark joy I have at a successful hunt. But that isn't worth it. Not for the guilt that buries me  
for feeling that way. The primal, animalistic exaltation I feel at a freshly blooded kill is  
wonderful. The price for it? Higher than that even for a successful mission.  
  
Contentment. I feel that, I suppose. After meditation. While working with the flowers. Sitting  
around the table talking about the shop. Seeing Omi's report card. Listening to Yohji's latest  
exploits. Watching Ken play soccer with the children. It comes creeping up, quietly and softly,  
so that I don't even know it's there. Until I notice it, and then it's gone again. It will only  
stay with me as long as I don't think about it.  
  
Stone heart. This from Yohji, our playboy. It's strangely poetic for him. It is this one that  
hurts the most. Stone heart? No. I love Aya-chan. I loved - love - my parents. I love Omi and  
Ken, as the brothers they are to me.  
  
And I love Yohji. I don't think he knows it. I don't think any of them do. I pray to the kami, if  
they exist, that they don't ever find out, although doubtless it is only a matter of time. I live  
with assassins. The kind that do reconnaissance before going on a mission.  
  
Yes, you heard me right. I love Yohji. The playboy assassin. The one who spends all his time  
high, getting laid, killing, or having a hangover. The man with the gold-flecked green eyes so  
beautiful I could stare at them forever. I love Yohji Kudoh, self-proclaimed ladies' man, and  
killer in his spare time.  
  
I know it doesn't make any sense. He's a bad boy, all right, but I'd be willing to put money on  
the fact that he's straight. He's nothing like me; he couldn't ever understand me, and I couldn't  
ever understand him. He doesn't care for me. He can't, not walking around of the opinion that  
"Aya-kun needs to take the stick out of his ass" and "Aya's nothing but a tight-assed prick,  
guys, don't let him bother you".  
  
He might, if I told him what I'd do for him if he asked. What I'd do *to* him if he asked. But he  
wouldn't care about me then, just the sex. And it doesn't matter anyway. It doesn't matter how  
many wet dreams I've had that he could make come true. Because he's not like that. He doesn't  
like guys. No matter how much I wish he did, he doesn't like guys.  
  
I couldn't even begin to tell you why it started. That first night, when I woke up in his  
apartment sporting a large bruise under my hair, he was so nice to me, so tender, even after what  
I'd done to Ken, that I was sure he was gay. He had to be, to be able to play nursemaid like  
that. But as soon as he stepped out of the door he became a different person.  
  
Outside, he was something else. Like the older brother that you hate but secretly want to be just  
like. Always getting laid, always high, but still not a blithering idiot. The first time I saw  
him with a joint... I guarantee you, if you had seen me, I would have had my jaw on the floor.  
  
Another thing I envy him for is his ease at killing. I don't understand it. Not that the katana  
gives a clean death, but that wire... You have to get so up close. I don't understand how he can  
avoid getting blood on himself. And such a long death. You can hang, you can strangle, you can  
have your gut slit open, or you can bleed from a million tiny deep cuts until you die. If I used  
that wire, it wouldn't be just my hair that was permanently red.  
  
And his attitude about killing. It doesn't affect him at all, aside from the occasional  
nightmare. I asked him about it once. He shrugged, lit up a cigarette with typical Yohji-style  
nonchalance, and said, "I'm going to hell. I let Asuka die. I abandoned my family friends,  
everything I knew to become a killer in the name of justice. I'm dead on paper. I might even be  
dead in real life, and this is my hell. If I am still alive, and I'm not in hell yet, I figure I  
might as well make the world a little better for the innocents, up their chances of living and  
being happy as much as I can. If that means I have to kill a dickhead whose existence is to make  
other people dead or miserable, I'm okay with that."  
  
I wish I could think about it that way. I honestly do. But before I kill, even when I'm on the  
prowl, and you can see the panther in my movements, I'm thinking about whether or not the guy I'm  
going after really deserves it. I find myself having qualms afterwards. You can never be sure.  
Sure, Kritiker's got all these docs on him, and all those good things, but I'll never know until  
I research the guy. To me, research requires a face to face conversation. When it comes to their  
lives, I'll never know unless I talk to them. And most of the time I don't get a chance to do  
that.  
  
No, whatever else I am, I am not ice cold. I am not unfeeling. And I do not have a stone heart.  
Whatever else I may not do, I feel, and I love. 


End file.
